by Nicci French
Neve started to say something but Mandy held her free hand up to silence her.
‘As I said,’ Mandy continued, ‘I’m no expert on criminal law. There is such a thing as client privilege but I’m not sure that it would apply to you and me talking in this garden. I think the most helpful thing would be if I think aloud in general terms and you don’t say anything at all.’
Neve was startled. She had always thought of Mandy in connection with elegant clothes and interior designers and foreign holidays. She had never imagined her talking like this.
‘First things first,’ Mandy said. ‘There’s something boring about getting legal advice from a lawyer. A lawyer will tell you what the law is and to obey it. What I would tell’ – she paused very slightly, indicating a certain irony – ‘your hypothetical friend is to go to see a lawyer – not me, a real criminal solicitor, and I could suggest names – tell them everything and come forward. It won’t be much fun but it’s a bit late for fun. If I were going to be really pompous, I would say that what your hypothetical friend has done is also not just illegal but wrong. There’s been a murder and if you tamper with the scene of the crime you’re helping the murderer.’
Neve looked around the garden. At the far end there was a bird feeder on a stand. A bird was clinging to it. It was streaked with bright yellow. A goldfinch. Mandy even had beautiful birds in her beautiful plot of land.
‘Can I ask one question?’ she said.
Mandy frowned.
‘It’s a general question,’ Neve continued. ‘It’s not about this specific case.’
‘What?’
Neve pondered how to phrase this. ‘If someone had tampered with a crime scene because they had very particular, personal reasons for tampering with it, reasons that had nothing to do with the crime, and then they came forward—’ Neve stopped. She had almost got lost in her own sentence. She had to gather her thoughts. ‘If she, or someone, had done all that, and came forward, would it be possible to keep the circumstances private?’
‘You mean reasons why this person had tampered with the scene?’
‘Yes.’
Mandy gave a mirthless little laugh.
‘Is this person a child?’
‘No.’
‘Was this person working for the security services?’
Neve managed a wan smile at that. ‘No.’
‘Is the person under a current court order protecting their identity?’
‘No.’
Mandy thought for a moment. ‘Is there any issue of sexual assault?’
‘No.’
‘Then the answer is no. If there are court proceedings, then you have to assume that everything will come out.’
Neve put her glass down very carefully on the table. ‘Thank you, Mandy, you’ve been very kind.’
‘You don’t look very happy about it.’
‘I’m not very happy.’ She shivered. It suddenly felt cold in the garden. She turned to go but Mandy put out a hand to stop her.
‘There’s something I haven’t said. Remember when Chris left me?’
Neve did remember. Mandy’s first husband walked out on her less than a year after their marriage. Mandy had fallen apart. Neve remembered hours with her on the phone, long walks, sitting together in silence.
‘You were very kind to me,’ said Mandy.
‘Well, of course,’ said Neve. ‘We all wanted to help.’
Mandy gestured at her surroundings. ‘I sometimes feel I need all of this just to prop me up. I couldn’t talk to my mother, but you were like my mother should have been.’
They walked to the front door together. Before Neve stepped outside, Mandy put her arms round her.
‘Tell your hypothetical friend that the thing about being outside the law is that you’re outside the law. That can be a very dangerous place.’
Neve nodded. ‘If she existed, I’d tell her that.’
Cycling home, she heard her mobile ring and she stopped to answer it. It was Fletcher.
‘How about if you make the main course and I’ll do the pudding?’ he said without preamble. ‘I thought I’d make my showstopper cheesecake.’
The dinner, thought Neve. The bloody dinner he’d arranged last night.
‘OK,’ she said.
‘What are you going to cook?’
‘I haven’t thought about it.’
‘I’m taking Connor to his football soon, so you’ll have to do the shopping.’
‘Right.’
‘I’ll text you the list of ingredients,’ Fletcher said. ‘I’ll need to have them a few hours in advance. It’s quite fiddly.’
‘Right.’
‘Will you cook fish or meat or neither?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Because you’ll need to pick up some wine.’
‘I won’t be able to carry everything, and we’ve got loads of wine at home.’
‘What about a starter?’
‘What about it?’
‘Maybe you could do your smoky aubergine thing.’
‘Baba ganoush.’
‘And those spicy nuts you make are nice.’
‘I’ll see you later.’
Neve put her mobile back in her pocket and propped her bike up on the wall, behind which stood a Georgian house. She could see a grand piano through its downstairs window. She sat on the edge of the pavement, put her head in the bowl of her hands and closed her eyes. Just for one minute, she told herself – until the feeling of sickness and dizziness faded a bit. She couldn’t remember when she had last had a proper meal, or a proper night’s sleep. She went over her conversation with Mandy in her head, remembering the stern and concerned expression on her friend’s face, and then she let herself think about all that had passed with Mabel. The autumn sun was warm on the nape of her neck. She could just go on sitting here and let the disaster unfold far away from her. She heard a text ping on her phone. That would be Fletcher’s list of ingredients, she thought dully.
‘Are you all right?’ said a voice.
She looked up to find a very old, very tiny woman staring down at her. Her face was like a wrinkled onion and her hat, which looked more like a tea cosy, only exaggerated the likeness. She was bundled up in a voluminous grey coat.
‘Yes,’ said Neve, struggling to get up.
‘Do you have somewhere to go?’ Her eyes were blue chips buried in the creases of her face.
Did she think Neve was homeless? Neve tried to smile at her but she wasn’t sure it came out right because the old woman continued to look at her with something like pity.
She took hold of her bike. ‘Just a dizzy spell,’ she said and pedalled away.
Neve pushed a trolley along the supermarket aisles. She consulted the list of ingredients Fletcher needed for his raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake. It was very rich and her stomach churned at the thought of it. What should she make? She gazed helplessly about her, feeling the slow thud of a headache starting. She had no idea what Jackie and Will ate. Mabel might join them – her heart sank at the thought – and she was a vegetarian, sometimes a vegan. Tamsin was on a high protein, low-carb diet. Rory mostly ate pasta and rice and cornflakes.
Her mobile rang. It was her mother: Neve hadn’t told her whether Rory would like the microscope or the binoculars. And had Neve heard from her brother? Her mother said Neve should seem him more often. Neve thought of mentioning that he lived in Seattle but said nothing.
She ended the call. It rang again, almost immediately. She didn’t recognise the number on the phone.
‘Hello?’ she said.
‘It’s Bernice Stevenson here.’
‘Hello, Bernice.’ Her heart started to bump uncomfortably.
‘I’m in town,’ said Bernice. ‘I’ve been talking to the detective again – the tall, bald one.’
‘Oh,’ said Neve. She could think of nothing else to say.
‘He told me things.’ A pause. Bernice’s voice was high and clipped. ‘About Saul’s private l
ife.’
Neve suddenly felt like the lighting was flickering. Things blurred and swam in front of her. She gripped hold of the supermarket trolley.
‘Can I see you?’ said Bernice.
‘You mean – now?’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in a supermarket.’
‘Which one?’
‘In Islington.’
‘Which one?’
Neve gave her the details.
‘I know it seems strange,’ said Bernice. ‘But I really need to talk to you about this.’
Neve felt that it was time to say that, yes, it really was very strange and maybe Bernice should be talking to her actual friends or to a counsellor, anyone but her. But the phone had gone dead and it was too late. Neve stood stranded next to the vegetables. She picked up a butternut squash and then loaded a paper bag with vine tomatoes. What had Fletcher told her to make? Baba ganoush, that was it. She put three glossy aubergines into the trolley. Garlic. Her phone rang again, this time from home.
It was Rory. ‘When are you coming back?’ he said.
‘Soon.’
‘Can we do something together?’
Neve picked up a piece of ginger that was as large as a knobbly hand.
‘I tell you what,’ she said. ‘Will you help me make dinner?’ Of all the three children, Rory was the one who liked to cook.
‘That’s good,’ he said, and ended the call without saying goodbye.
Pomegranate, she thought, and gazed around her. A woman in black trousers and a suede jacket was clicking towards her in her neat, shiny shoes. A complicated bag hung from her shoulder, thick with studs and metal clasps.
‘Neve,’ said Bernice. Her lipstick was orange. She looked ill. ‘You probably think I’m disturbed. Or completely friendless.’
‘I don’t think either of those things.’
‘I haven’t cried yet. Not a single tear. It’s like I’m frozen inside.’
‘These things take time,’ said Neve.
‘I don’t think I believe it yet.’
‘It’s very hard.’ She put a large bunch of fresh coriander into the trolley. How much self-hatred could she survive?
‘I was right,’ said Bernice. ‘Saul was having an affair. Or affairs. The detective told me, though I knew anyway.’
‘I’m very sorry.’
‘What are you buying?’
‘I’m having people for dinner. Something with squash,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll do some marinated fish as well. And then salads . . .’ Her sentence petered out. She gathered up a few bags of salad leaves and two avocados.
‘Saul’s favourite meal was roast lamb. I don’t eat meat though.’ She gave a strange, twisted smile. ‘I don’t eat much of anything really. I’ve been on a diet since I was about fifteen. Not got to let go of ourselves, have we?’
Neve started pushing the trolley, Bernice walking beside with her. Saul had made her a wild mushroom risotto once. Another time they’d eaten blue cheese on crackers lying in bed together. The crumbs had got everywhere. She put three limes into the trolley and two packs of raspberries.
‘I used to think,’ said Bernice, ‘that if Saul was unfaithful I’d leave him. Just like that.’ She snapped her fingers. Her nails were painted crimson, but the varnish was chipped. ‘But it’s never that simple.’
‘No,’ said Neve, trundling the trolley into the next aisle and keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead.
‘Bit by bit, we become people we don’t want to be,’ said Bernice.
Neve put yoghurt into the trolley, and then eggs.
‘I’m going to go to my GP just to make sure I haven’t caught anything,’ said Bernice. ‘Because we sometimes still, you know, made love. Men are very different from women, don’t you think? They can compartmentalise.’
Neve picked out a tub of double cream.
‘Although it wasn’t very often. I didn’t really feel like it anymore. Maybe that happens to most women when they get older. What do you think?’
Neve didn’t answer.
‘What’s odd,’ Bernice continued, ‘is that the last time we made love was actually the morning Saul died.’
They had arrived at the shelves of fish. Neve stared hard at the selection, squinting, trying to pretend she wasn’t hearing what she was hearing. Plaice, she thought. Or Haddock. Grey mullet. Who bloody cares?
‘He had to get an early train to London so the radio alarm went off before seven, but he brought me tea in bed – he always brought me tea in bed. And we had some stupid argument.’ Bernice gave an angry sniff. ‘About a fundraising dinner I’d said we’d go to and he didn’t want to. And then, I don’t know why really, we were suddenly kissing each other and he was pulling off his clothes.’
Bernice looked at Neve and half smiled. Neve tried to half smile back. She had forgotten the butter.
‘And it was better than in ages,’ said Bernice. ‘The radio was still on and I dimly remember hearing the half-past-seven news, and it was only when Saul’s phone alarm went off downstairs at twenty to eight that he realised he was running late for his eight o’clock train and he charged around the room pulling his clothes on like he was in some kind of farce and then he ran out of the door. I never saw him again.’
Neve murmured something meaningless.
‘Does it make it better?’ asked Bernice. ‘He was having an affair – or had been having. The detective said it was over but I don’t believe that. I think whoever it was who confessed about their affair was still lying. That’s what I told the detective. Anyway, the point is that Saul was unfaithful to me, but perhaps he still loved me, in his own way. Still desired me. Does that make it better? Or worse?’
‘Better, surely.’ Neve made herself say. She took a deep breath. ‘But did you still love him?’
‘There’s a question. I have no idea. Now perhaps I never will. But the thing is, I don’t know what to do now. With my life, I mean.’ She put her hand next to Neve’s on the trolley handle, as if she needed to lean on something. ‘I don’t know,’ she repeated.
They moved off together. Neve found the nuts, and then the digestive biscuits for the cheesecake base.
‘You’re lucky,’ said Bernice. ‘You’ve got a husband, you’ve got children, you’ve got a job. I bet you have a close circle of friends.’
Bernice was still holding the trolley. Neve steered them past the toilet paper and kitchen rolls, the foil and cling film. She put two long orange candles into the trolley and some paper napkins with a pattern of swirly flowers.
‘Everybody’s life is complicated,’ said Neve. ‘In its own way.’
‘Everyone likes you,’ said Bernice. ‘I think it’s because you’re not threatening. You’re straightforward. You’ve even won over that bald detective. I’m not the same as you. I bet people in the office say I’m cold-hearted and stuck-up.’
‘No.’ Although they did.
‘I never talk like this normally. Not even to people I’ve known since I was a child. Not to Saul either. It’s the shock. It’s a bit like being drunk. His murder has loosened my tongue.’
They had reached the checkout.
‘I have to go and cook,’ said Neve. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I can’t go back home. My son’s staying with my sister tonight and it will just be me in my empty house. What shall I do?’
Neve had a sudden feeling of horror. Bernice couldn’t be. Not really. She couldn’t be fishing for an invitation to Neve’s house. That would be so many kinds of inappropriate.
‘Can you call someone?’
‘I can’t go back there.’
‘Or you could stay with them? I’m sure people would be only too glad to help.’
‘I don’t want people looking at me with that horrible expression. Like they’re secretly pleased.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘What shall I do?’
Neve simply gave way. She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she heard her
self asking, in a weak voice: ‘Do you want to come back with me?’ She tried to keep her tone neutral. Perhaps Bernice would refuse.
‘Could I?’
‘What?’
‘Then for an evening at least I don’t have to be in my own life. I don’t have to be me. I would like that.’ Bernice let go of the trolley at last and straightened up. She patted her hair. ‘If you’re sure.’ She didn’t wait for Neve to respond. ‘Thank you. Let me buy some wine. Or would you prefer a bottle of gin? Yes, let’s have gin.’
They walked back, Neve pushing her bike, shopping bags swinging from its handlebars and every so often getting snarled up in the spokes. Bernice barely said anything, which Neve was glad about. She was trying to decide if Bernice had some kind of secret plan. When they arrived at the house, she was just getting the key out of her backpack when the front door swung open and Mabel staggered out clutching two splitting bin bags.
‘This is my daughter Mabel,’ said Neve. ‘Mabel. This is Bernice.’
Mabel grunted, and let the bags fall to the ground by the dustbins. She had tied a bright scarf round her hair.
‘Bernice Stevenson,’ added Neve.
Mabel gave a small jerk, like someone had given her an electric shock.
‘Hello,’ said Bernice, holding out a thin hand. Mabel shook it slowly, a little frown on her face, then retreated back inside and up the stairs. They heard the door slam.
‘She’s getting ready to go to university. Come in. I’ll make tea.’
She propped her bike up in the hall, took the shopping into the kitchen. Fletcher was in the garden, gazing down at the pile of glass frames. Neve put on the kettle and Bernice sat at the table, not removing her suede jacket. She was gazing around her and Neve tried to see the kitchen through her eyes. Everything was shabby, in need of paint and attention. There were cobwebs in all the corners, one light bulb was gone, the window frames were beginning to rot. And it was, she realised, all very cluttered. She had stopped really seeing how many things there were on all the surfaces – not just the ones that should be there, like candlesticks, the coffee grinder, the food mixer and scales, the bread bin and the pot of dying basil, but the ones that had drifted here and never been taken away: empty jars, a hairbrush, a Frisbee, half a bag of rice, a broken plate that she intended to mend with superglue (she had forgotten once again to buy superglue), old postcards, a bicycle pump, a random collection of paperbacks, a paint tray, single socks waiting for their partner to reappear, a radio that no longer worked, swimming goggles, empty wine bottles, a torch that needed new batteries.
